Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Worcester County Recreation and Parks is offering for the first time a motor coach trip to Amish County in Pennsylvania Thursday, May 18, 2017.

Explore The Amish Village and 12-acre grounds on your own or with friends and family before you head to The Kitchen Kettle Village to enjoy the 40+ shops filled with Amish-made goodies. You will also be treated to a narrated bus tour of the area and guided tour of The Amish House. The cost for this trip is $75 per person, with $30 due at booking and the remaining $45 due by Friday, May 5, to confirm your seat. Contact Program Manager Lea Cataggio at 410-632-2144 x2509 or by email at lcataggio@co.worcester.md.us to reserve your seat.

Judicial Watch continues to undercover the details of the Obama IRS’s arbitrary and capricious behavior toward those presumed to be “enemies” of President Obama.

Last week JW released 695 pages of new documents containing admissions by IRS officials that the agency used “inappropriate political labels” to screen the tax-exempt applications of conservative organizations. Other records reveal that the IRS was going to require 501(c)(4) nonprofit organizations to restrict their alleged political activities if they opted for “expedited consideration” of their tax-exempt applications.

The documents were produced after a revelation by the IRS that it had located “an additional 6,924 documents of potentially responsive records” relating to a 2015 Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit about the Obama IRS targeting scandal. These new records are the first batch of nearly 7,000 documents that had been hidden from JW, Congress, and the American people.

Of the 695 pages of documents released by the IRS, 422 (61 percent) were completely blacked out. More here

TUCSON, Ariz. – U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at Arizona’s Port of San Luis arrested a Mexican national, as well as a woman from Glendale, Arizona, after finding a combined 50 pounds of heroin and methamphetamine during the weekend. On...

BROWNSVILLE, Texas – U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the Brownsville & Matamoros International Bridge intercepted a load of alleged cocaine, valued at approximately $275,400, hidden within a white 2004 Dodge Durango. “I...

SAN DIEGO – U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at San Ysidro’s Ped West facility on Monday took a man into custody who was wanted for homicide. “Coordination with Mexico is key to border security,” said Pete Flores, director of field...

Federal funding for one of President Donald Trump’s premier policy proposals may be excluded from the House GOP’s budget for Fiscal Year 2017-2018.

House Democrats, along with a few House Republicans, are working around-the-clock to make sure funding for the estimated $12 billion border wall is not factored into the GOP budget, according to a report by The Hill.

“With Democrats united against new wall funding, it’s unlikely the Republicans have the votes to get it through and prevent a government shutdown,” The Hill report stated.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, in a statement to The Hill, seemed to concede that border wall funding would not be included in the GOP budget, saying the funds would come at a later date.

Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX) and Rep. Martha McSally (R-AZ) are the two Republican lawmakers teaming with Democrats to stop the funding of the border wall, despite both representing districts that share a border with Mexico.

“We recognize the need for robust border security and infrastructure to ensure public safety and increase cross border commerce,” Hurd and McSally wrote to the Trump administration in a letter, according to The Hill. “We also have an obligation to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars.”

Establishment Republicans in the Senate, like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), are also teaming with Democrats to stop the border wall, with McCain worrying more about the sentiment that Mexicans have towards America.

EAST PALESTINE, Ohio -It wasn't a Big Mac attack, but a hankering for a cheeseburger that prompted an eight-year-old boy from East Palestine to get behind the wheel of his dad's van and drive to the local McDonald's with his 4-year-old sister.

East Palestine Police officer Jacob Koehler tells 21 News that the boy pulled up to the drive-thru window of the restaurant at around 8 p.m. Sunday after driving from his home where his parents were sleeping about a half mile away.

The boy just wanted to buy a cheeseburger at the Market Street restaurant, according to police.

Two employees of the University of Wisconsin have filed a federal lawsuit to force the state’s taxpayers to fund the removal of their penises and various other costs which go along with gender reassignment surgery.

The defendants named in the lawsuit include the University of Wisconsin System and its board of regents, as well as some insurers.

The two plaintiffs are Shannon Andrews, a research assistant at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, and Alina Boyden, a teaching assistant in the anthropology department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Health advice has changed drastically during the past decade, and modern science has proven that some "truths" you've been told and believed all of your life are completely wrong. The bad advice comes from well-meaning parents ("Drinking coffee will stunt your growth.") to doctors ("Drink skim milk; it's healthier."). Take a look at six common myths you may still believe are gospel.

Napping in the afternoon means you're lazy. An afternoon nap isn't just for babies and toddlers, and it certainly doesn't mean you're lazy. About a third of American adults enjoy a daily nap and studies show that a brief 10- to 20-minute nap can boost your alertness and creativity as well as help keep you healthy.

DOVER — Higher costs for premiums and deductibles are likely coming for state government employees.

It’s just a matter of what those changes will look like.

The State Employee Benefits Committee convened Monday to discuss potential increases for the tens of thousands of individuals on state health care plan.While it did not approve any plan, many options remain on the table.

Gov. John Carney’s budget proposal called for shifting millions in costs onto government employees as part of a series of steps aimed at eliminating a large gap between projected revenue and spending.

The recommendations also suggested ending the double state share which allows couples who work for the state to essentially pay one premium for health care.

However, the governor left the specifics for saving $6.5 million up to the SEBC, which has the authority to change employee health care plans.

You know what’s so tragic about America? Despite all of the wars our nation gets involved in, we’re secretly one of the most peaceful cultures on the planet. We voted for George Bush, because he promised us a non-interventionist foreign policy. We voted for Obama, because he promised to bring the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan. We voted for Trump, because he promised to end the nation building policies of his predecessor.

And that’s the real tragedy. We’ve been voting for peace for nearly 20 years now, and all we get is war.

That should really tell you something. It should tell you that our system doesn’t care about what the president stands for, or what the voters want. The system is never held accountable for anything, so there is nothing stopping it. One way or another, the deep state always gets its way. So if our government wants a war, then you can bet that we’re going to war.

That was made abundantly clear last week when President Trump ordered the bombing of an air base in Syria. The attack was so provocative, that the Kremlin went so far as to say that the US is now “only one step from war” with Russia. The man who was supposed to buck the system and drain the swamp; the man who promised to restore our relationship with Russia and pull back from brinkmanship, seems to have finally submitted to the warmongers in our government. The deep state’s plan to drag us into a horrible conflagration was only temporarily derailed by Trump, and now it appears that their plans are back on track.

But there’s a silver lining in all of this. Once you know that war is inevitable, and you accept that fact, you can have a pretty good idea of what’s going to happen next. You can finally take steps to prepare for it.

STAFFORD, Va. (ABC7) — Monday night a dog who was able to open doors with his mouth and escape from a Stafford kennel was found safe and reunited with his owner.

"General," a Great Pyrennes who is around 10 years old, was being kept at the Aquia-Garrisonville Animal Hospital while the family of eight he belongs to visited relatives in Virginia Beach.

Surveillance video provided to ABC7 News by the animal hospital shows General using his nose and mouth to open doors and eventually escape. He is seen making his way out a back door early Monday morning.

The Virginia Department of Social Services (VDSS) has reached a $7,150,436 settlement to resolve a case in which it was accused of violating the False Claims Act in its administration of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the Food Stamp Program.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) provides eligible low-income individuals and families with financial assistance to buy nutritious food through the SNAP program. The program has served, on average, more than 45 million Americans per month since 2010, and provided funds in excess of $71 billion annually.

“SNAP is an important vehicle for helping needy families,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Chad A. Readler of the Justice Department’s Civil Division. “This settlement reflects the Justice Department’s commitment to ensuring that taxpayer funds are spent appropriately so that the public can have confidence in the integrity of vital programs like SNAP.”

'Lovable little revolutionaries' teach children communism is 'not that hard'

MIT Press is out with a new book that teaches children the tenets of Karl Marx with fairy tales.

Communism for Kids, written by a German author who specializes in political theory and "queer politics," was released last month. The thesis of the children's book is that communism is "not that hard," but has not been implemented in the right way.

"Once upon a time, people yearned to be free of the misery of capitalism. How could their dreams come true?" a plot synopsis for the book reads. "This little book proposes a different kind of communism, one that is true to its ideals and free from authoritarianism."

The book is full of cartoon drawings of "lovable little revolutionaries" that help navigate kids through the "evils" of capitalism.

WASHINGTON — A newly released report out of Montgomery County shows that nearly half of hate-based vandalism reported last year happened at school.

The annual report shows of the 94 hate crimes that year, 38 were religious in nature, while race was the factor in 34, ethnicity in 12, sexual orientation in six and gender in four.

Concerning educators and parents, the incidence of hate crimes rose by more than 42 percent in the county last year, with 21 incidents occurring at schools and colleges. Eleven of the targets were high schools, two at middle schools, six at elementary schools and two incidents at Montgomery College, the report said.

OCEAN PINES — A local woman along with two small dogs are recovering after getting attacked by a dog last weekend, but the attacking dog, a pit bull terrier, has been turned over to Worcester County Animal Control to be euthanized.

Around 11:30 a.m. last Wednesday, an Ocean Pines Police officer was dispatched to the area of Beaconhill Road for a reported dog bite. Upon arrival, the officer located the victim, identified as Mary Ernst, 52, of Ocean Pines, sitting on her front steps with a towel around her left leg. The responding officer checked the victim’s injuries and noticed two deep lacerations in her left calf, a puncture wound to her upper right arm and scraped knees.

A witness told police Ernst and her dog, an American cocker spaniel, were leaving the witness’s home when he heard screaming outside. The witness told police he ran outside and saw his neighbor’s dog, a pit bull terrier named Manny, biting into Ernst’s leg. According to police reports, it appears two pit bulls had gotten out of a fenced-in area.

Blue Cross Blue Shield insurers operating in the Affordable Care Act individual market will get close to break-even margins in 2017, according to a report from Standard & Poor's Global Market Intelligence.

Obamacare's individual market is fragile and needs about five years to stabilize since its inception in 2014, the report says. This means insurers in this market will likely not hit target profitability until 2018.

"After starting on the wrong foot in 2014, and deteriorating further in 2015, we are seeing the first signs in 2016 that this market could be manageable for most health insurers," the report said. "But it isn't on stable footing either."

One of the nation's most influential Muslim advocacy groups is resisting attempts to unionize its staff, according to a report.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) pushed back against political powerhouse Service Employees International Union's organizing overtures, according to Sean Higgins of theWashington Examiner. The advocacy group argued that it should be exempt from federal labor laws governing union organizing because it is a religious institution.

That argument was rejected by a regional director at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the top federal labor arbiter that oversees union campaigns.

"The evidence establishes that the employer is not an organization that exists to propagate a religious faith, but rather is engaged in a commercial-type activity," NLRB Regional Director Charles Posner said.

The conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch filed suit in federal court on Monday seeking communications records related to the Obama administration's attempt to ban a popular kind of AR-15 ammunition in 2015.

The suit, Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It stems from a Freedom of Information Act request the watchdog group filed with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) in March 2015. The request asked for all communications related to the agency's decision "to no longer exempt 5.56 mm. SS109 and M855 (i.e., ‘green tip' AR-15) ammunition from the definition of ‘armor-piercing' ammunition" in the year leading up to its announcement.

Judicial Watch said the ATF effectively ignored its request. The group said the ATF never formally acknowledged receiving the request despite confirmation from the Postal Service that it was delivered. ATF did not produce the requested documents, argue it was exempted by law, or tell the group if it ever intended to respond.

Faced with pilots leaving the Air Force in droves for the airlines, top generals are considering the option of forcing some to stay in the service against their will, a senior Air Force general told CQ Roll Call.

Gen. Carlton Everhart, chief of the Air Mobility Command, said in an interview that he and other senior Air Force generals will join Gen. David Goldfein, the service’s chief of staff, alongside representatives of the other armed services, in a meeting with U.S. airline executives May 18 at Andrews Air Force Base.

The goal of the meeting will be to find ways to solve the exodus of Air Force pilots to the industry in a way that is mutually acceptable for the U.S. military and the airlines — without the Air Force having to resort to “stop-loss,” a means of forcing Air Force personnel to stay in the service beyond the period of their commitment.

With Air Force pilots leaving the service in great numbers, there is growing talk of boosting bonuses to retain them. But money, it turns out, is usually the least important reason a pilot stays or goes.

That doesn’t mean an increase to the $35,000 annual enticement that is available to pilots after a decade of service would necessarily be a bad idea. But the pilot shortage — a hot topic this year in Congress’s defense committees — may be more a function of pilots being pushed out by the declining state of Air Force readiness than about the pull of big bucks in the airline industry, according to lawmakers and military leaders.More here

Gov. Cuomo’s much-heralded new program for free tuition at state colleges comes with a huge catch — you have to sign years of your life away to get it.

Under a provision that was added to the tuition bill at the last moment, students who get a free ride at CUNY and SUNY schools must live and work in New York state for up to four years after graduation, or be forced to pay the money back.

The amendment — which was not part of Cuomo’s original offer of free college for middle- class students — was added at the insistence of Republicans in the state Senate.

Wow, talk about becoming unhinged and detached from reality, Casa De Maryland’s Anarchist alt left liberal Delegates and Senators start calling opposition to the bill names, such as Senator Bobby Zirkin (D), a DINO, “Sen. Bobby Zirkin, shame on you!” Pena-Melnyk said during an afternoon press conference. “You are a DINO: Democrat in name only.” The Prince George’s County Democrat continued: “I hope your district takes you out.”

More disillusion from Delegate Ana Sol, who I once saw, kiss Gustavo Torres ring and hand at the statehouse:

Del. Ana Sol Gutierrez, a Montgomery County Democrat, said the united front of the state’s Latino, Asian and black caucuses in favor of the Trust Act was “historic.”

Since the election of Donald Trump, interest in “prepping” has dropped to the lowest level ever seen

According to CBS News, an astounding three-fourths of all Americans have to “scramble to cover their living costs” each month.

In other words, most of the country is either living paycheck to paycheck or very close to it. But instead of tightening their belts and trying to put something away for the very hard times that are coming, most Americans are completely and utterly unprepared for what is ahead because the people that they trust on television keep telling them that everything is going to be okay. Unfortunately, everything is not going to be “okay”, and when things start falling apart all around us there is going to be a lot of anger directed toward those that have been lulling everyone into a false sense of security.

One of the reasons why I am sounding the alarm so loudly is so that people will not be blindsided by the things that are about to happen to this country. As you will see below, we are on the precipice of two major wars, conditions are ripe for a devastating economic collapse, and if you were to throw in a major natural disaster or two you would have a recipe for the kind of “perfect storm” that many have been warning about.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker, derisively tagged the “Senator from Wells Fargo” by those fighting to recapitalize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is actively pushing President Trump to continue the Obama administration policy of sweeping Fannie and Freddie earnings to the Treasury Dept.

In a letter dated March 29, 2017, Corker rounded up four other U.S. Senators, including Virginia Democrat Sen. Mark Warner to write a letter to Melvin Watt, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Being a member of Congress was never supposed to be a lifetime employment. But for many, that’s what it’s become.

And even those who don’t spend decades in Congress—the average member of Congress serves more than nine years—do the next best thing and often become lobbyists so they can keep paddling in the swamp.

President Trump supports, as do I, term limits for Congress to “clean up the corruption and special interest collusion in Washington, D.C.,” as well as a five-year ban before members of the executive branch and members of Congress can be employed as lobbyists. Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, however, has declared that term-limit proposals are dead on arrival: “I would say we have term limits now,” Mr. McConnell told reporters. “They’re called elections. And it will not be on the agenda in the Senate.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions declared “a new era” in immigration enforcement on Tuesday, saying his prosecutors will try to bring stiffer criminal charges against repeat illegal immigrants and smugglers as part of President Trump’s crackdown.

Mr. Sessions said his enforcement priorities will end the “catch and release” practices of the Obama administration and give the Justice Department a more active role in stemming illegal immigration.

Prosecutors should prioritize cases against smugglers and should bring felony charges against illegal immigrants who have been removed before and have sneaked back into the U.S. or have other criminal convictions on their records, according to the guidance issued by the attorney general.

“For those that continue to seek improper and illegal entry into this country, be forewarned: This is a new era. This is the Trump era,” Mr. Sessions said during a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border in Nogales, Arizona. “The lawlessness, the abdication of the duty to enforce our laws, and the catch and release policies of the past are over.”

The United Nations Security Council has adopted five major resolutions since 2006 that impose and strengthen sanctions on North Korea for continuing to develop its nuclear weapons program and call on Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear program “in a complete, verifiable, and irreversible manner" and refrain from ballistic missile tests. The first two resolutions were passed shortly after North Korean nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009. The third came a month after North Korea successfully launched a satellite in December 2012. North Korea is prohibited from such launches under previous UN Security Council Resolutions because the technology in a satellite launch vehicle has potential dual use applications to ballistic missile development. The fourth was passed after North Korea’s most recent nuclear test in February 2013. The most recent was adopted in March 2016 after a nuclear test and satellite launch early in the year. The resolutions since 2009 furnished UN member states with interdiction authority, calling upon states to inspect North Korean cargo within their territory, and subsequently seize and dispose of goods prohibited by UNSC Resolutions.

[Resolution 1718 was unanimously adopted by the UN Security Council on Oct, 14, 2006, in the wake of North Korea’s Oct. 9, 2006 nuclear test, prohibiting North Korea from conducting future nuclear tests or launching a ballistic missile. It called for the country to suspend its ballistic missile program and to completely abandon efforts to pursue a nuclear weapon. The resolution included a range of sanctions designed to prevent North Korea from continuing to develop these programs.]More

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Republican National Committee (RNC) chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview last week in her office on Capitol Hill that Republicans are preparing already for what they expect may be a landslide midterm electoral victory that sweeps in as many as 14 GOP pickups in the U.S. Senate and not only holds but strengthens the House GOP majority.

McDaniel, who took over the RNC after her predecessor Reince Priebus joined President Donald Trump’s White House as Chief of Staff, said in the half-hour-long interview on Thursday afternoon:

"On the Senate side, we have a great opportunity to expand our majority in the Senate. There are 10 states where President Trump won where we have Democrat incumbents and President Trump won by large margins in some of those states. We also have infrastructure in some of those states already. The RNC had a ground game in Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. We need to be continuing to build on that infrastructure in these Senate races. ."

WASHINGTON — The morning after the Maryland General Assembly finished their session, Gov. Larry Hogan signed 115 bills into law, including some of his most important priorities.

Among the bills signed Tuesday were the More Jobs for Marylanders Act, which created tax incentives for manufacturers to create jobs to parts of the state with high unemployment rates, such as Western Maryland, Baltimore and the Eastern Shore.

Hogan also signed an ethics reform bill which clarifies the definition of a conflict of interest and extends the amount of time state officials have to wait before becoming lobbyists. He called it “the first real meaningful ethics reform in 15 years.”

The governor didn’t sign a bill requiring employers with more than 15 workers to provide paid sick leave, a measure he had previously called “dead on arrival.” He didn’t veto the bill either; he has 30 days from passage to decide what to do with the bill, which passed last week.

Closing down the U.S. Education Department (USED) could be a snap compared to repealing and replacing Obamacare.

A bill, House Resolution 899, filed by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and seven co-sponsors on the day Betsy DeVos was confirmed as education secretary would start the beginning of USED’s deconstruction with just one wonderfully succinct sentence: “The Department of Education shall terminate on December 31, 2018.” That is the entirety of the bill. The contrast with hard-to-fathom legislation running hundreds or even thousands of pages is refreshing. And the sunset for an agency that has generated more red tape than positive results over its nearly four-decade run would be absolutely gorgeous.

USED is a monument to the failure of the strategy to use centralized education policymaking to boost learning. Furthermore, its ventures into shaping and tracking student feelings, attitudes, beliefs, and dispositions have become steadily more of a threat to individual liberty.

On the latest ICE Declined Detainer Outcome Report, the state of New York features illegal aliens who were protected despite being convicted of sex assault – carnal abuse, robbery, selling heroin, larceny, assault, intimidation, fraud, and several other crimes. In previous reports, we see much the same. And ICE has caught plenty of illegal aliens who have committed serious crimes in NY. Yet, NY is more concerned with keeping their population which is unlawfully present.

For some reason, this is really important to Elle, which is a women’s fashion magazine. I guess they need the low wage sweatshop work that illegals can provide

The cultural divide widens. While President Trump has restricted Muslim visitors and cracked down on Mexican immigration, the state of New York has announced even more protection of their immigrant population. In their 2018 budget, lawmakers granted $4 million to expand the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project, which provides public defenders to immigrants facing deportation who can’t afford other counsel.

New York is the first state in the country to create such a rich system of legal services for immigrants. In a tweet today, NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman confirmed the news, saying, “Every New Yorker deserves a fair day in court. For the first time, every immigrant under threat of deportation will be guaranteed theirs.”

Eager and anxious to normalize the taking of life, HBO has launched a new project called Abortion: Stories Women Tell. They tout it as a “fair” representation of both sides of the issue. The two sides, for those who may be confused, are these; the side that thinks it’s barbaric to rip a baby limb from limb inside his mother’s womb and the side that thinks it’s barbaric not to have the absolute unmitigated right to rip a baby limb from limb inside his mother’s womb.

Now we might well wonder, why would anyone be on that second side. And how does such a person actually justify that stance? The answer lies somewhere in the ability of human beings to lie to themselves.

The idea that this horrifying documentary, which features the audio of a baby being dismembered and killed, is fair to both sides, is ridiculous. Number one, there’s a third side no one is considering; the baby. Perhaps the child whose life is on the line should be considered a full fledged member of the “debate”. According to Reagan Barklage, Western Director of Students for Life of America, and one of three pro-life people featured in the documentary, the project was clearly slanted toward abortion, showing the left’s idea of the stereotypical abortion protesters who harass patients, instead of showing the compassionate and non-judgmental pro-lifers.

After less then 75 days in office, the mainstream media is already writing obituaries for the Trump administration. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry from the absurdity of it all.

Even Juan Williams of Fox News writes. “But it is no liberal fantasy to say the odds of a Trump resignation or impeachment before 2020 are looking better by the day.”

Words are cheap, and I wonder what kind of odds Williams would actually give this ridiculous proposition were he to put some of his own cash on the table.

I prefer to look through the noise and see a president who cannot tolerate losing and as result will incur all costs, and take all action, to ensure that he we will win.

This means taking immediate measure of the situation and changing, as necessary.

I am reminded of a quote from a U.S. Marine, Major Lloyd Williams, memorialized in a veterans memorial in my hometown in California, just outside Camp Pendleton. When advised by a French Colonel to retreat during a battle in World War I, he said, “Retreat Hell! We just got here!”

ANNAPOLIS, MD – Governor Larry Hogan signed a bill on Tuesday that will move the state’s seafood and aquaculture marketing program from the Department of Natural Resources back to the Maryland Department of Agriculture. House Bill 120 was submitted by the Agriculture Department, with strong support from the state’s watermen and seafood industry. The bill passed both chambers of the General Assembly unanimously.

“This bill is an important step toward recognizing the bond between farmers and watermen,” said Governor Hogan. “As Marylanders, we all know that Maryland is home to the best seafood, and with a strong marketing plan from the Department of Agriculture, Maryland will be open to new markets and opportunities for our watermen.”

The bill creates new “Maryland’s Best Seafood” branding for locally produced products. The industry will also benefit from established relationships with distributors, restaurants, grocery chains and other institutions, in addition to the department’s experience in promoting products to international buyers through the Southern United States Trade Association (SUSTA).

WASHINGTON - An open records request to Prince George’s County Public Schools found hundreds of staff members are being put on administrative leave for abuse and misconduct allegations. Teachers tell FOX 5 the high number isn’t about widespread abuse, but a system that isn’t working.

The records request stated that 299 staff members were on leave for misconduct as of March 8, and there had been a total of 636 misconduct cases so far for the 2016-2017 school year. For perspective, Montgomery County, the largest district in the state, currently has less than 20 staff members out for misconduct.

High-profile child abuse cases in Prince George’s County Public Schools led the school district to revamp policies last year with the schools’ CEO mandating new training for employees and requiring staff report any and all suspicions of wrongdoing directly to child protective services.

An August 2016 study of the relationship between “sanctuary city” policies and crime rates shows that cities refusing to cooperate with federal immigration authorities consistently have significantly higher violent crimes rates than do non-sanctuary cities with similar populations and demographics, WND has found.

The study, published last fall by researchers from the University of California-Riverside and Highline College in Des Moines, Washington, is frequently cited by proponents of “sanctuary cities” who ignore or downplay one important detail – the actual crime statistics of the carefully selected cities chosen for the comparison model.

This sounds like a fascinating read. Probably not much I didn’t already know… but when you tell me that if this info on Barack Obama had come out earlier, it could have impacted the election, you get my attention. Pity that it didn’t. David Garrow is a biographer, historian and author who has written a book on Obama’s life. It took him eight years to write it. He claims there are a ton of revelations in it. To start with and I know this will shock you… Obama called America “a racist society.”

Garrow says that Obama and his friend Robert Fischer wrote hundreds of pages for a potential book in the early 1990s. At the time, they were both in law school. The book was never published, probably because Obama realized it could hurt his political ambitions. “Racism against African Americans continues to exist throughout American society, an admittedly racist culture,” Obama and Fischer wrote, according to Garrow. “Precisely because America is a racist society we cannot realistically expect white America to make special concessions toward blacks over the long haul. The greatest testimony to the force of racist ideology in American culture is that it infects not only the mind of whites, but the minds of blacks as well.” So, we didn’t just elect the first black president, we elected a racist.

Michelle Obama and Melania Trump couldn’t be any more different. The way they walk, talk dress… even the way they vacation is different.

Michelle Obama was labeled “angry black woman” during her husband’s Presidency. Even as far back as 2012 where a New York Times reporter wrote it in a book. Then just last December, Oprah Winfrey did an interview with Michelle to discuss the unfair‘angry black woman’ label. Of course Michelle did think it was an unfair label but if you google images ‘Michelle Obama angry’ you will find so many angry angry faces to choose from that there has to be something to it.

On the other hand Melania Trump has been seen as a breath of fresh air in the Whitehouse. She is poised and elegant, even being compared to Jackie Kennedy. So it is not surprising that Melania Trump continues to define herself as being the furthest from the last First Lady by not sticking the American taxpayer with any lavish jet-setting vacations like the former First Lady Obama and her family did.

While the Trump’s are in the White House they have committed to fund THEIR OWN personal vacations. The Trump’s prefer to vacation at their own personal properties. But as soon as Obama was elected, Michelle Obama began creating a reputation for being the ‘Vacationer-in-Chief.’ There’s no denying she enjoyed jet-setting from country to country on the taxpayers’ dime, treating herself, her two spoiled daughters, and even her mother to some of the most lavish accommodations the world has to offer. Judicial Watch has published a report that the cost of the first family’s personal or largely personal travel during the last eight years comes to $85 million – but is likely to climb to $90 million after additional records are released, based on federal government records.

This is a HUGE reason American’s have found it refreshing when Donald and Melania Trump announced that they would be paying for their own vacations while being the First Family of the United States.

Amazingly, the U.S. Arctic is estimated to hold 27 billion barrels of oil and 132 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Many Energy companies have struggled to tap those resources but Obama-era policies have restricted activity… until NOW!

President Trump will issue an executive order with the goal to give oil companies more opportunities to drill offshore, reversing those nasty Obama-era policies.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told an industry conference in Washington on Thursday that this new offshore drilling directive will be issued soon. The session was closed to the press according to three attendees who spoke on condition of anonymity. They also said that Zinke did not provide specific details on the executive order during his presentation to the National Ocean Industries Association.

The coming order is set to amend a five-year Obama administration leasing plan that left out auctions there, according to an industry representative who has discussed it with officials.

“At present, foreign investors cannot hold a majority stake in securities and insurance companies in China. The country’s largest companies in these sectors, such as Citic Securities and China Life Insurance, have achieved enormous scale in the 15 years since the world’s second-biggest economy joined the World Trade Organization, making them formidable competitors for new entrants to the market.”

Apparently China is also planning to end the 14-year ban on United States imports, as well as purchasing more grain from America in an attempt to ease escalating trade tensions.

ANNAPOLIS, MD - Governor Larry Hogan, along with Senate President Thomas V. “Mike” Miller and Speaker of the House Mike Busch, today signed 120 bills into law during the first signing ceremony in the State House following the conclusion of the 2017 session of the Maryland General Assembly. The bills signed included top priority administration legislation to eliminate conflicts of interest for elected officials (HB 879) and enable the state to move forward with 73 top priority transportation projects (SB 307).

The final bill of the signing ceremony was the governor’s More Jobs for Marylanders Act (SB 317), which was the centerpiece of his Maryland Jobs Initiative. The bill achieved nearly unanimous passage in both the House and Senate in the final hours of the session on Monday night.

“Since day one the focus of our administration has been on restoring Maryland’s economy and putting more people to work. We have already seen incredible success – we have added nearly 105,000 new jobs and lowered unemployment to 4.2 percent,” said Governor Hogan. “This morning we are taking the next important step by signing the More Jobs for Marylanders Act, which will incentivize and encourage manufacturers to create thousands of jobs in the areas of the state that need them the most, like Baltimore City, Western Maryland, and the Lower Eastern Shore, while also offering benefits to both workers and job creators across the state.”

There was a pro-illegal alien march and rally held in Dallas last Sunday called ‘Mega March 2017’. Unfortunately, organizers misjudged how many attendees they would have. They were off by nearly 100,000. The turnout was sad and meager compared to the 2006 Mega March in Dallas that drew an estimated 500,000 stretching many packed city blocks. The couple thousand people who attended the 2017 Mega March thinly filled half the lanes of a handful of blocks as seen from aerial video by KXAS-TV.

Later the Dallas Police released their march attendance estimate at around 3,200– turnout was less than one percent of the 500,000 who marched in 2006. “The #MegaMarch2017 is winding down. The crowd estimate was about 3,200 and there were no reported incidents or arrests.”

The organizers compressed the march to half the width of the road in order to make the march appear better attended it actually is, which is what they should do… heck that’s what you do as an event organizer.

The rally organizers made their pro-illegal alien agenda clear in a tweet on Saturday promoting the march, “We demand that the aggressions against the #Undocumented and #Immigrant community stop. #Resistance #HereToStay #NoBanNoWall #HumanRights” WHAT??? Aggressions?